Syriza's answer to austerity, he continued, would be this: "The bailout is over. Blackmail is over. [View all]

"History is knocking at our door," declared Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the leftwing coalition party of Syriza in Greece, during a speech addressed to thousands of supporters in Athens on Thursday night as he stood next to his foreign compatriot Pablo Iglesias of the Spanish Podemos Party.

"The wind of democratic change is blowing in Europe."
—Pablo Iglesias, PodemosSyriza and Podemos have become the mouthpiece of the anti-austerity movement in southern Europe while Tsipras and Iglesias have emerged as key political leaders who emerged from the grassroots, street-level protest movements which rose in opposition to the severe economic policies imposed by elite forces following the financial crisis that began in 2008. In relatively short time, both Syriza and Podemos went from being non-existent political entities to standing on the doorstep of taking power.

With national elections in Greece just days away, and Syriza's polling numbers only improving, Alexis Tsipras announced that his party is prepared to "overthrow" the status quo and vowed to implement swift changes to undo the austerity policies—imposed at the behest of foreign creditors and attached to a bailout package offered by the European Central Bank and the IMF—that have left the Greek economy in tatters. Standing before the large crowd, Tsipras announced that by Monday, "[Greece's] national humiliation will be over. We will finish with orders from abroad."

Syriza's answer to austerity, he continued, would be this: "The bailout is over. Blackmail is over. Subservience is over."



http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/23/verge-victory-europes-ascendant-left-declares-subservience-over